[blacksmith_tb]

Obviously this is a theme that has been explored in SF a fair amount (recent examples include Ken Macleod's The Restoration Game and Iain Banks' Surface Detail). One obvious problem is that it appears to be highly immoral to generate a simulation in which millions or billions of sentient beings suffer, which presumably would weigh heavier on a more advanced species (human or otherwise).

[ars]

> One obvious problem is that it appears to be highly immoral to generate a simulation in which millions or billions of sentient beings suffer

If you had a computer program that printed "I'm suffering" on the screen, would you consider that real suffering? Or just a robot that doesn't actually feel anything, it just simulates it?

Or a game where your character is low on health points - is that game character really suffering?

To that other being we may be the same way. I internally "feel" real, but that being may not consider it so, and even if I tell them they may just be excited at how good their simulation is.

[georgemcbay]

It is pretty easy to ignore the suffering of others if you can convince yourself that it is a different and simpler form of suffering than you feel -- just look at how a lot of humans (and I'm talking about ones that are accepted by society, not crazy psychopaths) treat animals (eg. circus elephants).

[infogulch]

Exactly. For a being that is capable of simulating the entire universe at the quantum level we may be no more "sentient" in their minds than ants are in our minds.

[JetSpiegel]

Humans have no problem in letting billions suffer in real life.

Are beings in a simulation "sentient"? This seems illogical.

[blacksmith_tb]

Perhaps we aren't highly advanced enough yet to care (some of us do, some of us don't - and relatively few extend that concern to say, lichens, admittedly). As to whether or not simulated beings could be sentient, well, if we're all living in a simulation now, I say the answer is 'yes' - I hope...